Page 118 of In the Pursuit of Haven
“I will dare more than that, I wager,” Philip rumbled out, “before the morn is through. My wife be dead. Though it was by childbirth, I blame this town for her frailty, for she did never recover from her heartbreak when our neighbors turned on us—first to slander our reputations and second, to rob us of our every belonging. Oh no, your sins will not go unanswered. I will have what is mine.” He signaled his men to descend on the wagon bearing Corwin’s casket. They stole the reins from the stone-faced driver.
“Nay! Do not!” Corwin’s wife shouted out. Her angry protests were echoed by her kinfolk.
“What? Ye want his corpse returned to ye,” Philip hissed, “when many do still wonder and mourn the loss of their loved ones’ remains? Where did the sheriff bury those witches’ bodies, I ask ye? Oh, ye have no answer for me? I cannot countenance your ignorance. If ye desire to know where we are to put your husband’s remains, ye will pay the ransom I ask of ye. Make no mistake of that.”
His men slowly drove the hearse away from the funeral procession, and when Corwin’s relatives tried to stop them, more of Philip’s posse stood in their way.
“Oh, ye are an unholy people,” Corwin’s widow cried out. “Ye bring yer strange religions and beliefs here to our home and expect God to smile down on ye, but today ye show us for what ye truly are.”
“I shall do more than that… be certain of it,” Philip retorted. “Stealing your husband’s corpse will not be the end of my vengeance against this town. All that ye feared from me ere ye stole all that I had will now come to pass.”
Thunder drowned out the rest of “my” story. I felt a chill run down my body. The wind and rain was fast turning to sleet, and I was wet… all the way from the roots of my dripping hair to the soggy threads of my socks. Uh oh.
Jessie’s hands tightened over my prickling arms before he released me to inspect Mary and Philip’s names against the rock. “Wait.” He scooted to the side of me, so he could brush away the dirt and leaves. “There’s something written under there.”
As soon as the debris was cleared, I stiffened when I saw it too. “1833.”
“What does that mean?” Jessie asked.
“I don’t know.” Now I was shaking for a different reason than the cold. “Both Philip and Mary English died far earlier than that, so…”
“And then there’s this cross on the other side of it.” He reached across me to touch the carving I’d discovered earlier. “Reverend Smalls left us another clue,” he muttered. He texted his sister to help us figure out the mystery: “Do you know what 1833 has to do with Philip English?” he asked her. Setting his phone down against my knee, he smoothed my wet hair away from my neck. “What was the man’s revenge, Roxy?”
Before I could answer, his sister texted back: “1833 was the year the Anglican church that Philip had built was renovated.”
Jessie’s fingers clenched my hair.
I untangled the strands from his surprised grip with a tremulous smirk. “Pretty good revenge, hu—huh?” Oh great! My teeth were starting to chatter. I wrapped my arms around my legs to get some heat. “The only churches at that time were Puritan… so he donated his land to put up the first Anglican church in the colony. He was buried in the plot of land behind it, but…” I crossed my arms across my aching stomach and tried to figure out what the renovation had to do with our clue. “When they extended the church—and that would be 1833—they stretched out the building so that it went right on top of the cemetery, including over Ph—Philip’s grave.”
Jessie’s eyes widened. “And you’re worried aboutmedamaging property?”
“They didn’t care about that stuff in 1833!”
“Only because that was before they filmedPoltergeist.” Jessie groaned and found his own hair to mess up with his careless hands. “Now everyone cares! You know they made a scary movie about something like this?”
“Right? Andwecall the Puritans superstitious.” I laughed. “No one really cared about preserving graves back then. You know how many burial grou—grounds got plowed over?” Our argument was only providing minimal distraction from the chill. I took a steadying breath. “At least the Church took the gravestones and stashed them into the walls for safe—safe keeping.” And they stuck a few stones on the side property in no particular order. “But the—the bodies are still un—under the church.”
“Just for the record—that’s not right.” His lip curled. “Weneedto go to this church! That relic is there. It has to be.” Jessie reached across my shaking knee to trace the engraved cross with his finger. There was a circle around it, and a faded line that wasn’t a part of the original cross.
I did my best to still my quaking body as I peered at the image, noting the notches dividing the circle into twelve equal parts, making it look a little bit like… “A clo—clock,” I sputtered.
Carving a clock around the cross had to be telling us something. With everything in me, I focused on the faded line that split the top left part of the cross. “It’s gi—giving us a ti—time.” Mist left my mouth.
“Ten o’clock,” he said evenly. He watched it unflinchingly.Is my guy even a tiny bit cold? What’s his problem?“We have to be at the church at ten a.m. if we’re going by nautical time… well, if we don’t factor in Daylight Savings…?”
“Which isn’t a th—thing until March,” I said. “So ten it ss—still is.” I leaned into him, unusually tired, but thrilled that we were figuring this out.
“Great. Great,” he whispered into my hair. “So whatever we need to find will be at the church.”
“A—ame—” I meant to say “Amen,” but my lips were starting to get too numb to get anything out. “Goo—good thing… S—Sabbath tomorrow. The chapel will be… open.”
He nodded. “You think that will be a problem? More witnesses?”
What choice did we have? Hunter’s men were after us, and we couldn’t risk them catching up to us like they had before.If we’re lucky, they’ll only trap us in the organ this time!“If a packed congregation me—means getting lost in a c—crowd,” I said, “I’m all… for it.”
He nodded and wrapped his arms around me again. Normally his body heat was enough, but my body was shaking so hard from the cold that my muscles were starting to ache. I noticed the frost spreading across my wet jeans.
“You’re turning into ice!” Jessie sprang to action, crawling hand over feet out of the shelter of the rocks. As soon as he was able to stand, he had to bend over so that his head wouldn’t scrape against the frame holding up the boatshed.
